Quote Originally Posted by Atilius View Post
The ancient sources don't give us much information on the equipment of soldiers of the Camillan army. Livy's description mentions only that the Principes are "furnished with superior weapons". We do know that the Servian 2nd class (which can reasonably be considered the precursor of the the Principes) fought with a spear and that the Polybian Principes used a short sword. Dionysios of Halikarnassos (Book 20) mentions that the Principes wielded spears during the Pyrric war. That tips the balance for us, though we can't say for certain we're correct.

It's possible that a very small minority did. But writing about the Roman army of roughly 160 BC, Polybios implies that only fairly wealthy legionaries wore mail.

The Servian 3rd class (roughly speaking, predecessors of the Hastati) apparently didn't wear body armor. The truth is probably that some Hastati of Camillan armies wore body armor and some didn't. But for game purposes our units must have uniform equipment. If we give them a pectorale/kardiophylax, they are no different from Polybian Hastati, so they've been portrayed as unarmored.
Does the team think the transition from "Camillan" to "Polybian" happened after or before the 2nd Punic war?